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Mazowe women in Zimbabwe are very smart. Playing on the gullibility of their men, these women, under perceived spiritual and ancestral possession, give spiritual power to their men on mining sites for a fee. The miners perform rituals at the mining sites according to specific instructions provided by the diviners. The belief is that the occult spirit being of these women accompanies miners underground and helps them to find gold. Stories abound of how one old woman helped miners by allowing them suck her breast which, they believed, would enable them to strike a gold belt thereafter.
This type of practice cuts across different cultures in Africa. In some parts of Igbo land, there are women who serve marine spirits. They call themselves Ezenwanyi (queen). Some men call themselves Akajiofo (custodian of ancestral authority) or native doctors. These people claim to have extraordinary powers. Maybe! But the snag is that there are many fake ones and, sometimes, it is difficult to differentiate them from the real ones.
Currently, the Anambra state government is in hot pursuit of the fake ones. Early February 2025, operatives of the Anambra State security outfit, Agunechemba, apprehended Chidozie Nwangwu, a native doctor popularly called Akwa Okuko Tiwara Aki (fowl’s egg that breaks palm kernel) at Oba in Idemili South Local Government Area (LGA) of the state. He is alleged to be the brain behind ‘Oke Ite’ (great pot) money ritual. The pot is believed to be a gateway to unlimited wealth. Many of our youths are sucked into the ritual. They believe that with Oke Ite, they can go on any expedition and come back unscathed. Many of them are languishing in jails abroad, awaiting execution. Their crime was drug peddling. They believed so much in the power of their charms to protect them. But they were misled. On interrogation by the deputy governor of Anambra state, Onyekachi Ibezim, Akwa Okuko Tiwara Aki denied that Oke Ite has such powers.
The other day, I saw a video of his Oba townsmen in some form of protest. But the protest was not against the state. It was an appeal to the governor of Anambra State, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, to temper justice with mercy and release their son who has been in detention. They said a lot of people, including widows, depended on him for sustenance, and that he had done a lot of things for his Oba community.
On February 12, 2025, few days after the arrest of Nwangwu, the state government sealed a shrine in Umuofor village, Okija, in Ihiala LGA of the state. This followed complaints from residents over suspicious activities of a certain native doctor, Ekene Igboekweze, who reportedly runs the shrine. Popularly known as Eke Hit, he is said to be among those who promise super wealth to unsuspecting individuals and fraudsters. He has since been arrested.
Anambra’s tough stance is understandable. The spate of insecurity in the state is partly traceable to these fake native doctors. They prepare charms for kidnappers and armed robbers, giving them false confidence that bullets cannot penetrate their bodies.
The situation is such that many youths don’t want to work anymore. They want easy money, the type Oke Ite can bring. Aside from drug peddling and other criminal activities, some of them are into betting. They go as far as borrowing money which they throw into betting, believing the divination of their native doctor that they will win plenty of money. I know some of them who are into it but are regretting it today.
Some are into Yahoo Plus. All they do is to look for gullible people to scam. Foreigners are usually their victims. Most of them succumb to romance scam. Or investment schemes that yield millions of dollars with little capital. Before they go into this, the scammers first consult native doctors. And they are given difficult conditions to fulfil. Some are reportedly asked to sleep with mad women. Some use their blood relatives for rituals.
It is instructive to note that a genuine native doctor will not promise you what he cannot fulfil. And he is not too much after money. He does more of healing with natural herbs, a skill that may have been transferred to him by his forefathers.
The fake one is easy to discover. He boasts a lot and claims what he cannot do. He is after money. To solve one problem, he can ask you to bring one big cow when you may not have the financial capacity. My town’s vigilante operatives apprehended one of them last month in my village. He is said to be from Abakaliki and he looks every inch a poor man. People patronizing him did not ask themselves why the physician cannot heal himself. He does ritual that makes people rich but he is poorer than a church rat.
It is not only among native doctors that you find these fake people. They abound in some major religions like Christianity. They are merchants of miracles who claim to be spokesmen of God. “God said I should tell you to sow a seed of N5m and you will see how multiple blessings will follow you,” they are wont to say. But who has ever seen God and remained alive? How will we know that it is God who tells them what they claim? Because the scriptures say blessed is he who does not see but believe, a lot of people believe and follow them in grand delusion.
I listened to the sermon of one of them recently. In a bid to woo his congregants to donate huge money in what the church calls first-fruit offering, he told a story of a certain woman who promised to give God N300,000 as seed. This seed was tied to a special prayer request – that God should heal her and her only son of a particular ailment. According to the clergyman, the woman did not have up to the N300,000 she promised God. But with faith, she emptied her account of the only N270,000 in it and promised to pay the remaining N30,000 later. She did fulfil her promise. But after a few days, her son died. She allegedly cried to God and expressed regrets that God disappointed her. As her son was about to be buried, she let out a loud cry to God and then the miraculous happened: her son rose from death. I was dumbfounded. I immediately got up and left the church.
Not that miracles don’t happen. They do. But this particular narrative sounded more like a cock and bull story. I blame people who allow themselves to be deceived. No doubt, there are genuine men of God. But the entrepreneurs among them have so polluted the altar that deciphering the genuine from the fake ones requires great skills in intuition and discernment.
That is why the Anambra State government has decided to think for the people. It enacted the Anambra State Homeland Security law 2025 which demands that every native doctor should register with the state.
Section 18 of the law stipulates that any person who administers powers or charm on any other person for the purpose of commission of any offence or for the purpose of accumulation of wealth by supernatural means other than by any known lawful means of livelihood commit offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of six years with option of fine of N20m or both. Under the law also, whoever is arrested for claiming to have supernatural powers must prove that he truly has such powers. Else, the person is jailed for six years or pays a fine of N20m or both on conviction.
Many of them who are fake are leaving the state. The other day, some native doctors under the aegis of Odinala Orumba South took an oath to expose and ostracise the fake ones who engage in unethical practices and spoil business for them. The oath-taking took place at Izo Mmili shrine, Umunze, in Orumba South LGA.
In Imo state, the state police command, last week, warned unlicensed and mischievous native doctors to vacate or be ready to face the wrath of the law. This warning followed the resolution of traditional rulers in the state wherein they mandated all native doctors in the state to come forward for verification and registration. The police command said it had arrested over 10 native doctors linked to various crimes such as kidnapping, ritual killings, armed robbery, among others, in the past few years. Most of them have been arraigned.
Before you go to do sacrifice at an intersection where four footpaths meet, ask yourself, is it worth it? Before you raise your hand to slaughter your mother or father or even son for ritual purposes, ask yourself, to what end? Before you visit a stream to bath and make sacrifices just to become rich, examine your conscience and ask yourself if what you have chosen to do is worth polluting the source of water for the entire community?
The irony of it all is that many of these spiritual entrepreneurs are illiterates. And they control and manipulate people who supposedly went to school. We must always use our brain. But if you must patronize such people, look at the pedigree of the person making claims of spiritual powers. Anambra State is giving them run for their money now. As I heard, if you are caught, you must demonstrate those powers you claim to have. Otherwise, you go in for it. Charlatans fishing on the vulnerability and weakness of people should know that their days of reckoning is near.
